THE RAW RANT: 24th October 2016

27th October 2016by Danny Damage

Hello and thanks for showing up to rant, rave and reflect on the latest episode of Monday Night Raw Live. Here is your host, hailing from a dark corner in the North East of England, it’s Danny Damage.

Later tonight:

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#RAW Live

We kick things off with Chris Jericho tonight.

Jericho looks upset and says the triple threat match has been cancelled.

SOMEONE HAS STOLEN THE LIST OF JERICHO! He goes on to say he’s not doing anything until he gets it back and will take the ring and the show hostage if that’s what it takes.

Kevin Owens comes to speak to his best buddy.

Before Jericho can finish asking him, Owens denies any involvement in the theft.

Owens says he’ll help Jericho find it, but only once they’ve taken care of Seth Rollins. Jericho refuses and says he’ll only help Owens take care of Rollins once he has his list back. It’s his emotional property and he wants it back.

Stephanie McMahon tries to sort things out. Jericho accuses her and she says she doesn’t have it either, but she’ll do everything she can to help him find it, after he competes in the triple threat match later tonight. Jericho refuses once more and says NOTHING is happening until he has his list back.

Seth Rollins joins the party and is obviously up to something.

Jericho can see his precious and he wants it back.

Rollins claims Steph is on the list for putting Owens inside Hell in a Cell on Sunday.

Rollins’ closing monologue was great; saying he was “going to burn their little establishment to the ground”.

Later:

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Rollins is backstage and Stephanie ambushes him with questions about The List and its whereabouts.

He tells her to stop pretending like she cares about anything but what she wants/needs and says that he doesn’t have The List any more, that he left it in the locker room.

Before Enzo and Cass can finish their intro, Enzo’s microphone dies.

Gallows and Anderson show up and say a nice fellow in the production truck cut them off after slipping him a bit of coin.

They say they’re here to “be mean and make green” and that Enzo and Cass must have missed the notice that the rest of the tag division has been put on.

Admittedly, in quite an impressive “look how fucking over we are” fashion, Enzo and Cass continue their intros along with the majority of the crowd singing along, providing an excellent counter for thinking that muting them would stop them.

Enzo Amore (w/Big Cass) vs. Karl Anderson (w/Luke Gallows)

Moments after I had decided in my head that I was going to include Enzo in with the “Good Shit” this week for being a good worker despite his tag matches being very formulaic with him depending on Big Cass to come in and got all seven-foot on folk, Cass boots Anderson in the head while the referee is distracted by Gallows.

That’s apparently enough to knock-out Anderson, as Enzo scurries over for the pin and win.

One step forward, two steps back.

Intense pre-filmed Rusev promo.

Funny thing is, Rusev is justified in everything he said about Reigns being the antagonist in this story.

Turning Lana into a cake, mocking his marriage and his family, and so on.

It’s a New Day, yes it is.

It’d be funny if one of the cereal boxes was loaded one week. Not that they’d need to be at the realm-shattering speed that Big E fires them. Once again, they rave about Cesaro and piss all over Sheamus.

Cesaro and Sheamus have a tiff during the pre-show and Sheamus says he doesn’t want to be a champion with Cesaro.

In an attempt to aid Kofi in flying over the top rope into Sheamus/Cesaro, he instead fed the poor little fella into a huge European Uppercut from Cesaro who was ready on the outside.

Sheamus has already run behind a concerned Big E and drops him like a sack of shit with a Brogue Kick.

Sheamus scores the pin and shows that The New Day’s titles are in trouble if he and Cesaro can work together like this on Sunday.

Video package of Goldberg’s return last week, mixed with a WWE 2K17 simulated match-up between him and Brock Lesnar.

Jericho rummages around in the looker room, looking for The List of Jericho. He asks Primo and Epico if they’ve seen it, but they just offer him a price list for their dodgy dealings.

Since he hates the Dominican, he declines.

Titus O’Neil offers no help . Jericho gets a bit of scarf-envy.

Jinder Mahal of all people is next in line, he offers Jericho a breathing exercise to calm him down from his current state of panic.

Jericho’s not interested in that either, so he tells Jinder he’s a stupid idiot and then buggers off.

Dana Brooke is already in the ring.

While Bayley enters, Cole and co. fill in the blanks by saying Dana requested a rematch after the WWE Universe called her victory over Bayley last week “an upset”.

Then Dana grabs a microphone and repeats what Cole just told us a few seconds ago. Bayley has her arm taped up as she injured her shoulder in the match last week. Instead of a regular match, Dana lays down a different challenge.

Arm-wrestling Contest

Bayley vs. Dana Brooke

Bayley obviously offers her arm that isn’t knackered, but Dana’s not going to be generous tonight.

It takes her no effort to beat Bayley’s injured arm, so Dana offers Bayley another opportunity and lets her use her left. Bayley starts to win, so Dana lamps her with a fist, followed by slamming her injured shoulder into the arm-wrestling table.

Out of the blue, Bayley manages to hit a Bayley to Belly and this causes Dana to cheese it out of harm’s way.

Chris Jericho is still frantically sniffing around for The List of Jericho. His nose leads him to Stephanie McMahon.

Steph says she sympathises for his loss, but she has a shit-load of other stuff to worry about at the moment. Jericho stands his ground and reiterates no listy, no matchy. Steph threatens to suspend him if he refuses to compete in the main event tonight.

Curtis Axel has some things to get off his chest.

He reminds us all of his bloodline and that he’s in his home town. We’re then shown clips of last week’s blind-sided assault on Axel by Bo Dallas.

Bo Dallas vs. Curtis Axel

A well-paced match. Bo gets the old sneaky roll-up and leaves Axel gob-smacked. Hope they use these two more often.

Jericho gets a raging clue from a man that he kisses on the head for the information.

It seems like he hits a brick wall around the corner though, when he discovers who is it that has The List.

Strowman asks Jericho to say please after the the first request to hand it over. Jericho adheres.

Strowman growls that Sami Zayn’s name isn’t on The List and practically chest-shots Jericho with it as a means of handing it back to him. Happy to have The List of Jericho back in his own hands, Y2J shouts that Zayn’s on page four and then welcomes Strowman’s name to The List for touching his property.

Roman Reign’s pre-taped response to Rusev.

The crowd don’t seem as behind Reigns as they were last week.

#SingAlongBullShit

Golden Truth (w/Mark Henry) vs. The Shining Stars (w/Titus O’Neil)

A perfectly fine tag match. Titus starts to get involved in the match and he causes the Shining Stars to gain the advantage. Henry comes over and pushes Titus UP and onto the apron, knocking Primo off the ropes. Titus sold the strength of Henry to the moon and back, a la Shaun vs. Hogan.

With Primo down, Golden Truth finish him off and get their hands raised.

#HIAC / Here I Am, Cringing

Mick Foley is already in the ring, beside the official WWE contract signing table.

He talks about history, then brings out Charlotte and Sasha.

I’m already bored.

Foley tries to warn them both of the dangers of the cell. They don’t seem to be paying much attention to him, so he cuts them off and blows his lid.

Incredibly, Foley did an awesome job of turning this segment around and grabbing my attention by the throat. He really drove it home, the crowd were also entranced by his tear-jerking speech.

It went downhill again once the girls started yapping. Even the crowd felt it as they were taunting them with a light “boring” chant.

So Foley pours even more emotion into yet another warning.

They both sign the contract anyway. Charlotte says she knows best, Sasha just straight ignores him and signs on the dotted line.

Well, ladies, you’ve been telling everyone how amaze-balls in bed you are for the last month or so and have been celebrating long before you accomplished what you’re gloating about.

Let’s hope you don’t both just lie back and take it like a cold, sack of spuds on Sunday.

TJ Perkins joins the lads at the table.

#Cruiserweights

Brian Kendrick vs. Rich Swann

A quality contest. Kendrick went for The Captain’s Hook, Swann was able to duck behind it and rolled him up for the one, two, three.

SWEEEEEEEET!

He’s back after his leg-reduction surgery!

Tom Philips is here and he’s spending some time with his old pal, Kevin Owens.

Owens says nothing has changed in the JeriKO camp and he and Jericho will destroy Seth Rollins tonight and he’ll go on to Hell in a Cell live to finish him off.

#ThatOldBadger

I guess a small percentage is still “a percentage” in the end.

We’re shown a clip of what happened last week between Zayn and Strowman. Looks like we’re not waiting for the pre-show on Sunday.

HHHUUUUUURRRRRRRRGGGHHHH!

Braun Strowman vs. Sami Zayn

Before the match starts, Strowman demands a real challenge instead of what stands before him. He then turns his back on Sami, who punches him in the back of the head and slaps him in the face when he turns around.

Zayn makes Strowman chase him and he gets some offence in, only to be caught and tossed into the barricade.

Strowman is still unsatisfied and walks away.

Zayn gets back in the ring and taunts the monster to have another go. Strowman doesn’t react and he continues to leave.

Brian Kendrick cries to TJ Perkins and suggests he let him win on Sunday, since he knows how much he and his family need it.

Perkins grabs his things and walks away in disgust.

Paul Heyman slithers away from his sneak and into Brock Lesnar’s locker room.

#BrockLesnar

Brock and Paul Heyman march down to the ring as we’re reminded again of what Goldberg said last week.

Heyman feels dirty just saying Goldberg’s name. He tries his best to get the crowd to boo Brock and to start a Goldberg chant, but to no avail.

Only a few of them bite and the rest continue to chant for the home-town guy.

Eventually, a “Goldberg sucks” chant begins and I imagine Kevin Dunn jumping chaotically out of his seat to hit Lesnar’s music and rush them both out of the door.

Lesnar’s music hits and they leave, wondering what the fuck anyone in the back expected when putting him in front of his home town posse.

Owens and Jericho patch things up backstage before the triple threat match.

Jericho is concerned that Owens doesn’t care about their friendship, but Owens assures him that he does.

Jericho hopes they’ll still be friends after their match, however it ends.

Next Week:

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#TripleThreat

Chris Jericho vs. Kevin Owens vs. Seth Rollins

JeriKO try to set Rollins up for a double Superplex.

Rollins slipped underneath them both and hit them with half a Powerbomb each and a double-pin.

A ballistic Owens doesn’t let Rollins get away that easily.

Owens and Jericho put the hurt on Rollins, even though Seth does have a go at fighting back.

Security come to break it up.

It’s all in vain though as security end up getting wiped out a couple of times.

Then Rollins is broken over the apron with a Powerbomb.

Happy with the result, the champion celebrates and has even more confidence heading into Hell in a Cell Live.

Afterthoughts

Here’s how Hell in a Cell Live is looking right now.

I’m looking forward to it. It should be a great show!

Good Shit:

Corey Graves. I know, I know, I go on about him all the time, I know! I can’t really be blamed though when he continues to run circles around everyone else that works at a commentary table at the moment and in the last few years (although Mauro Ranallo is always chomping at his heels). To Byron, talking about Halloween next week: “I hope you dress like an empty chair”. I went on last week about how entertaining he was and in previous editions I’ve mentioned how he even goes out of his way to buy into and sell everyone and their gimmicks, regardless of the talent’s position/importance on the roster. As well as continuing to get behind The Titus Brand, this week he got his hands on one of The Shining Star’s brochures and he then even pitched their wares to Cole and Saxton.

Mick Foley. Fuck yeah. Foley wasn’t just the lesser of three evils of the women’s segment, he was simply brilliant. I’m pretty sure this was the only time he was featured on Raw Live tonight and I’m happy that they held off on using him until he’s got something important to do/say. It’s just a shame this is the first time they’ve actually done this though.

Chris Jericho. I’m going to be a sad panda when he leaves again to tour with Fozzy.

Kevin Owens. He’s made a much better champion than I thought WWE would let him be if I’m being honest. I’m hoping he holds onto it for a while.

Bad Shit:

Brock Lesnar & Paul Heyman. Well, I can’t point the finger and blame them personally, Paul did what he could to steer the crowd, but they weren’t having any of it. Since he didn’t just go with it and encourage their chants for Lesnar, I’m assuming he’d been told to stick at it regardless of the crowd’s behaviour. It does seems a little too stupid that nobody thought this would happen in Lesnar’s home-town. Unless of course, someone wanted to make Goldberg look a bit shit.

Karl Anderson. One bog-standard move from Big Cass was all it took to knock him out. Last week was bad enough with Karl getting ruined by Cass in a hasty fashion, but at least he finished him with a finisher.

Big Cass. Not necessarily the big man’s fault, he just seems to be getting the “make him look really strong” treatment, to the great detriment of his opponents.

Sheasaro. I know that WWE want to show them not getting on for a little bit longer and after that they’ll still be working out the kinks. That being said, if they’re going to just combine their entrance music and choreography, I think it would work better if it started off with Cesaro’s sequence, but just as the James Bond bit ends and before the music kicks in properly, we’re hit with that explosion of sound and white light and the camera pulls back to show Sheamus is already there and Cesaro heads forward to march to the ring with him. Plus, that gives a practical explanation for Cesaro wearing shades indoors.

The Divas. Did we actually see any women’s wrestling tonight? Or did we just see thirty seconds of a scuffle after an arm-wrestling contest and two kids patting themselves on the back while ignoring the wise words of an actual veteran that’s been around more than a couple of years? Poor show, Smackdown’s ladies aren’t perfect but they’re currently in the lead on this one.

Oh yeah, there was another photo shoot of Emmalina.

Go, Diva’s Revolution!

Digest and discuss! You can follow me as I work away on Twitter (@BluntDamage) for additional nuggets of wisdom and also on Instagram (@DannyBluntDamage) to see me shoot photographs of my other hobbies and guilty pleasures. Thanks for reading, take care and I’ll see you next week!

It’s a lesser of two evils kind of affair, but I feel the Divas on Smackdown (with the exception of Fake Tits Bella of course) spend a LITTLE less time patting themselves on the back for a fine ten minute’s work.

There’s not much in it, but at least the blue Divas are just getting on with it and not acting like it was their idea for women to rid themselves of their shackles and leave their chore-riddled homes and get a job like real people in the first place.

Catherine Bouey

I say let them pretend rather then letting Vince or Stephanie give themselves a pat on the back considering how Women’s wrestling was and still is largely disregarded by some wrestling promotions and fans.